It’s soon going to be a foodie delight for schoolchildren

NEW DELHI: Convenience food — so far a relief for working couples and bachelors while being an essential part of the armed forces’ backpack — could now be making its way into the eating bowls of school kids.

The food processing ministry is considering a proposal to involve the ready-to-eat (RTE) food industry in the Mid-Day Meal scheme for supplying meals to government schools. This could be in the form a new low-cost model of convenience food which is today positioned as a rather premium offering.

With crores of school kids around the country to be covered under the scheme, this could spell big business for industry players. This means that the likes of ITC, MTR and Kohinoor Foods could be supplying, for instance, rice-rajma mix to the students. Industry players maintain that their involvement would mean hygienic and varied food offerings for the children.

More importantly, this could catapult the business in this segment into the multi-billion dollar league from being a niche product currently. Estimates by industry chamber CII say this could offer business worth Rs 15,000-20,000 crore.

One of the arguments advanced by the industry for such a proposal is to allow the school teachers to concentrate on teaching. There are cases where the school teachers, who are supposed to supervise the serving and consumption of the meal, are found to be cooking the food themselves.

Says PL Kaul, president, All India Food Processors’ Association: “Today, the food for such schemes is outsourced to contractors who indulge in malpractices. Food can be procured in a dehydrated form from the food processing companies within the cost of Rs 6 per student which is what the government spends anyway.”

The ministry of food processing industries is learnt to be considering the proposal and is now expected to take it up with the ministry of human resource development.